Galen As Read and Perceived by Medieval Islamic Medicine H
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Istoriya meditsiny Istoriya meditsiny (History of Medicine) CONTENTS (History of Medicine) 2015. Vol. 2. № 1 2015. Vol. 2. № 1 GENERAL ASPECTS OF HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF MEDICINE Galen’s Logic: Aristotelian Heritage or Scientifi c Innovation? V.L. Vasyukov . .3 The evolution of Vesalius’s perspective on Galen’s anatomy D. Lanska . .13 Galen as Read and Perceived by Medieval Islamic Medicine H. Ebrahimnejad . 27 FROM THE HISTORY OF HEALTHCARE Formation of health insurance in Yaroslavl province E.M. Smirnova . 39 INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH The social status of physicians in Ancient Egypt O.A. Jarman, G.L. Mikirtichan . 48 From the Tokyo to Khabarovsk trials: the history of the preparation of the trial of Japanese war criminals and bacteriologist V.V. Romanova . 61 The Venetian editions of Galen of the second half of 16th century as a source of information on the history of medicine P.A. Shamin . 70 SPECIFIC QUESTIONS IN THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE Hippocrates, Celsus and Galen: Head Injury, the Brain, and the Bone J. Ganz . 78 SOURCE Natural philosophy and principles of general pathology in the Galen system (as exemplifi ed by the Ars Medica treatise). Part 1 D.A. Balalykin . 89 Returning the medical writings of surgeon and Bishop V.F. Voyno-Yasenetsky to scientifi c use M.N. Kozovenko . 113 On the ligation of vessels in spleen removal (Bishop Luke) . 116 The need to increase the extent of surgery for malignant tumors of the breast (Bishop Luke) . 118 Request for quotation: We ask readers of the English version of “Istoriya meditciny” (“History of Medicine”) journal to use for quotation the Russian issue details (journal title, volume, number, pages), listed at the end of the each article. 2 Istoriya meditsiny (History of Medicine) 2015. Vol. 2. № 1. DOI: 10.17720/2409-5834.v2.1.2015.03e Galen as Read and Perceived by Medieval Islamic Medicine H. Ebrahimnejad, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor University of Southampton, UK The infl uence of Galen in Islamic countries is associated with the extensive contribution of Greek scientifi c knowledge in the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods. Islam as a religion and a political force, competing with Christianity and the Byzantine Empire, was instrumental in spreading the heritage of Greek medicine. It originated in a geographical and cultural sphere near Hellenistic civilization. For development and distribution, «non-Islamic» science and knowledge were needed. It appears that the dominance of Greek medical thought in Islamic culture was possible because integration of Greek intellectual heritage was part of the ideological process during the formation of Islam itself. However, Greek medicine, as it was perceived by Islam, was no longer a body of knowledge that could develop independently: it now needed to be interpreted in a special way – as Islam required it. While theoretical teaching in Hellenistic medicine was based on anatomical observations. After a period of neglect that began in the second half of the third century BC, it was again taken up by Galen in the second century AD. Theoretical innovation based on anatomy did not actually occur in Islamic medicine. A lack of any clear understanding of the practical relevance of anatomy to the development of medical knowledge led to it becoming exclusively descriptive in medieval Islam. However, this underestimation did not explain why dissection and surgery did not develop in Islamic medicine. Religious and theoretical factors were more important. The author attempts to show how Galen was perceived in the Islamic world and, based on an analysis of Islamic reading of his works, reveals the reasons for the gap between the Christian West and the Islamic East in their approaches to ancient Greek medicine. Keywords: Galen, Islam, Greek medicine, Islamic medicine, anatomy, history of medicine In a letter of 20 February 1657, a contemporary School of Alexandria. As intellectual heirs to this of Descartes wrote: One of Descartes’ friends school, Islamic physicians hammered home the went to visit him at Egmond, Netherlands. This importance of dissection and anatomy in medical gentleman asked him about physics books: which education. It is, however, striking that there ones did he most value and which of them did was no single dissection undertaken by Islamic he most frequently consult? “I shall show you”, physicians. In any event, they were not reported replied Descartes, “if you wish to follow me”. or documented. Therefore, we have three major He led him into a lower courtyard at the back of approaches (or readings) towards the relationship his house, and showed a calf that he had planned between medicine and anatomy before the modern to dissect the next day. “Here is my library from period. They are distinguished by their inherent which I take my wisdom” answered Descartes to link between the form of anatomical pathology: his friend [1]. Aristotelian, Galenic and Islamic. The aim of Such a library as source of medical knowledge this paper is not to examine these three historical was fi rst used by Aristotle in the 4th century BC experiences in medicine, but to depict the impact and later by Herophilus (ca. 320‒260 BC), of Galen on medicine in Islam, explore the Erasistratus (ca. 260 BC) and then by Galen (ca. epistemological gap between the Islamic hakims 129‒216 AD). What distinguished Galen from (philosopher-physicians) in the seventeenth and earlier Hippocratic physicians were his eff orts to eighteenth century on the one hand, and their unite various medical schools, a turning point in contemporary Western counterparts on the other. the history of Greek medicine, without which they This article aims to understand why in Islam probably would not have prospered. It was Galen’s the most practical aspect in mdeicine, namely work that shaped the medical curriculum of the anatomy and dissection, were converted to “text” and knowledge of the human body was sought in books. In the West, “anatomical dissections” © H. Ebrahimnejad for Descartes were based on his prized physics 27 ISTORIYA MEDITSINY (History of Medicine) 2015. Vol. 2. № 1 books and the “Experimental Medicine” of p. 14]. His surviving works include more than Claude Bernard, (1865) as inspired Emile Zola, 120 titles, published in 22 hefty octavo volumes who dispassionately wrote about French society by Carolus Gottlob Kühn in the original Greek. in his novels. By examining the Islamic reading In Leipzig they included an accompanying Latin of Galen, this article attempts to identify the translation, 1821‒1833. Hunayn in his Risâlah factors that caused this gap between the Christian provides details about 129 works of Galen that West and Islamic East in their approach to Greek he and his collaborators translated from Greek medicine. To do this, I will need to begin with into Syriac and/or Arabic [8, p. 25]. Campbell Galen and the process of the transmission of records 272 works of Galen, including some Galenic medicine into Islam, not least because it which have been lost [9]. However, none of is the process of assimilation of Greek science in these fi gures represent the entirety of Galen’s Islam that informed the way it was conceived or work [10]. The Arabic versions of Galen’s works perceived. are mostly attributed to Hunayn b. Ishâq (d. ca. 873) and his followers, such as his son Ishâq b. Galen and Hippocratic medicine Hunayn (d. 910); but others, like the well-known Throughout the Hellenistic period, various Thâbet b. Qurrah (d. 901) contributed as well. medical approaches developed, including In the interest of clarity and readability, Hunayn Hippocratic medicine1. During the first four intended his translations to be idiomatic rather years of his medical studies, Galen attended the than literal, at times achieving greater lucidity courses of almost all the then-active medical than Galen himself, but at the cost of occasional schools (or rather approaches), the Dogmatic, errors [8, p. 30; 11, p. 119]. The content of Galen’s Empiric, Methodic and the Pneumatic in lost works can also be found in citations in works Pergamon. It seems, however, that from this of later physicians such as Râzi who in his Shukuk early stage Galen was more influenced by the alâ Jâlinus quotes Galen literally, or Ebn Sina, Dogmatics, who, while following principles who in his Canon paraphrases him without of the Hippocratic teachings, believed that specifying which of Galens’ works he is citing [12, the mere observation of the exterior of the p. 191, 192]. We might also fi nd works that are body was not sufficient and a knowledge of wrongly attributed to Galen. The Tâle‘-nâma-ye anatomy was critical to medical practice [4, Jâlinus, for instance, obviously is not attributable p. 7]. As we will see, the Dogmatic approach to Galen. It is a genre of commentary in which with an emphasis on anatomy emerged a Galen’s ideas are presented through the prism of century after Hippocrates (ca. 460‒370 BC) Islamic or folk astrology [13]. under Aristotelian influence. In turn, the The translations of Galen’s works were emergence of the Empirics was a reaction to the made from Galen’s original texts and from anatomical school of Alexandria [5, p. 32]. It Late Antiquity Alexandrian summaries and was thanks to Galen that Hippocratic medicine commentaries. In Shahrazuri’s (active c. triumphed, since in his time the Methodics 685/1285) myth formulations, “from nearly 400 and the Empirics were more numerous and small and large tracts of Galen, [a summary probably more successful [6, p. 658]. Although made in] sixteen volumes were [at the most] read Galen criticised the Empirics, believing that by medical students” [14, p. 332]. Shahrazuri knowledge of inner structures and functions would refer here to what “Onsor al-Ma‘âli”, was essential to successful medical practice, he writing in 475/ca.